


The Price of Fire (Fodlan Bakeoff Entry)

by Miki_San



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24647260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miki_San/pseuds/Miki_San
Summary: After his child is born without a heartbeat, Jeralt decides to break off from the Church.  Doing so requires some decisions he's not proud of.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	The Price of Fire (Fodlan Bakeoff Entry)

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I’m currently in the process of playing through Crimson Rose but it’s the only path I know at the moment. I still want to play the other paths, but for now that’s the only one I’ve gotten to. I apologize in advance if any parts of my fic conflict with details brought up on another path.

Jeralt watched the flames engulf the monastery from a nearby hill. He figured it best if he wasn’t present when the fire he started was found. Fire was such a complex entity, one that had several symbolic meanings. It could bring light and sustain life, but also just as easily snuff it out.

Jeralt remembered the rumors the Knights of Seiros told, the ones of Rhea supposedly conducting awful experiments. Stories of her spending large periods of time in heavily guarded rooms, disappearing into secret passages that the someone would attempt to open later to no avail. One guy even swore he ended up in one of these rooms and saw her bringing puppets she stitched together to life. Jeralt thought some of these were a bit far fetched, but after these last couple weeks, he could no longer believe it was all sunshine and rainbows in this Church either.

A child with no heartbeat. If it was just his wife that had been lost maybe he would have bought it. He still would have been pissed he didn’t get to be there with her, but he might have bought the story. But a child, active and healthy, most definitely still alive, living without a heartbeat? That was clearly the result of something unnatural.

It’d be best if she grew up outside all that. Outside the influence of crests and nobles and the Goddess. He knew it most likely wouldn’t last forever, but he vowed that for as long as he could, he would give her a normal life. Well, as normal a life as a mercenary can have.

He paused. He had already been over this decision hundreds of times in his head, but he couldn’t shake his lingering thoughts. Living as a mercenary would mean Byleth would have to learn how to defend herself at an early age. She would have to see battle before any child should. She would have to learn how to take a life in order to save her own.

He glanced back at the flames that could now be seen beginning to trickle out the top of the monastery.

“It’s still a better life than what she’d have here,” was his final thought, before turning to continue his journey west.


End file.
